Every Droplet Matters

The Problem

Water is very critical for survival and that is why you hear often on water saving awareness and researches that could help on saving water from big consumption to small consumption in households. It is my believe that the problem of water wastage is not because of awareness because people know when they are wasting water, they just do not have a habit of saving them. One of the places where water is wasted big time is in house hold activities like washing your dishes, your hands, brushing your teeth and other similar activities that require us to use the sink multiple times in a very few period of time. On average, about two gallons of water flow from a faucet each minute. Something as simple as turning off the water while brushing your teeth can save up to three or four gallons of water per person per day. There have been many researches that brought a solution on water saving like a sink that makes water decision for end users proposed by Stanford University by learning their washing style which I believe is very impressive but peoples are unpredictable all the time and their way of doing things differ based on many factors and if people were a machine this would be perfect product. So what the world needs is a technology that can bring a behavior change towards better management that saves water at household level. This project proposes new product that bring behavioral change for water saving practices where end users use water in all location at all times.

Our Proposal

This project is about building a smarter sink faucet that turn on and off if there is an object and no object between the faucet tip and the sink bed respectively. Meaning this smarter faucet is equipped with a distance sensor that measures the height between the tip of the faucet and the bed of the sink at all time. When there is an object between the tip of the faucet and bed of the sink whether it is a hand, a dish plate, cup or other material it automatically send signal for the valve to open. When the valve opens water comes out. Then automatically when the object is removed from the point between the tip of the faucet and the bed of the sink the distance sensor send signal to the valve to close the opening. Since we feed the data of the exact height between the tip of the faucet and the bed of the sink to the distance sensor it knows when there is an object and the object is removed in micro seconds. This will help on water saving big time because end users do not have to close once the water gate opens. When you brush your teeth, wash your face, shave your beard and doing other task, opening and closing the water gate is done on frequent times with in very short period of time and this is very unrealistic and it is easier for end users just to leave the water running until they are done. But this device will enable the end users save water without compromising their comfort. Reputation use of this product will lead to behavioral change when using other ordinary sink.

We Assume that...

I am assuming that electric power to run the system is not an issue or availability of electric power supply in the society is not an issue.

The electric consumption bill from using this product will match the saving of water expense done by the product in both bill and environmental impact. This makes the product feasible.

Constraints to Overcome

This project will address the water wastage in household level by saving unnecessary water droplet on the sink that comes out of faucet when we wash our hands, brush our teeth, shave our beards, wash our plates or some other tasks. This will trigger a behavioral change every time end users uses the product. This will lead to water saving habit on all kind of faucet, smart or ordinary as a result of this product. This change of behavior change come out of directly from using the product. Additionally, there is No need for change of policy by the government when transitioning to implementation. This product can also be integrated in the shower to save the water consumption avoiding unnecessary water running when there is no one or your body is not using it. The scope of the project can be widen in the future and can affect the global community. There will be more additional features this device equipped with and the finial design will be submitted soon. See the attached initial drawing.

Current Work

The primary work tasks and activities over the next 3-6 months will be building a high quality prototype and demonstrate to clients.

Current Needs

I need funding to build my prototype and platform to showcase my product globally.